At a busy street crossing, people wait for the signal to change. When one person steps out first, others soon follow. Scientists in Amsterdam have found that this same kind of behavior happens at a ...

The ice in a domestic freezer is remarkably different from the single crystals that form in snow clouds, or even those formed ...

For years, researchers have provided contradictory evidence about the “premelting film” of ice, its thickness and whether it ...

Whenever you get around to doing dishes, how easily water slides down a dirty plate depends on how uneven and crusty the plate’s surface is. At the nanoscale, however, where surface features can be ...

Physics, particularly forces and motion, can be challenging. By observing everyday motion, conducting simple experiments, and understanding Newton's laws in plain language, the concepts become more ...

When two sides of a geological fault grind past one another during an earthquake, the friction can heat the rocks to at least 1,250 ºC. In their laboratory at the National institute of Geophysics and ...